HOPKINSVILLE, Ky. (WBKO) – As students in Christian County prepare for the new school year, the Museums of Historic Hopkinsville-Christian County are offering a unique educational experience. As part of their Museum Mondays series, children had the opportunity to step back in time and experience a one-room schoolhouse, a nod to educational practices of the past.
“Today we’re looking at the one-room schoolhouse and what the school used to look like,” said Brett Pritchett, the museum’s education coordinator. “As everyone prepares to go back to school, I hope that after today they’ll realize that there are actually still some similarities between what was done back then and what we do in education today.”
Thanks to special funding provided by Hopkinsville Mayor JR Knight, the cost of students’ summer visit to the museum was covered, making the program accessible to all.
“It was a great opportunity for the students to have something to do during the summer when they don’t have anything else to do because school is closed,” Pritchett said. “We took that opportunity to do a special program on Monday called ‘Museum Monday.'”
As part of the Museum Monday program, children were also able to design their own exhibits, which will be on display in the museum until next month.
“The kids look at artifacts and choose what we want to display. Then we show them how we actually display those artifacts in the museum,” says museum intern Amber Selfe.
The children selected postal artifacts to honor the building’s original purpose as the county post office.
During the one-class period, part of the ongoing Museum Monday series, students followed an abbreviated schedule typical of the era, playing recess games from the past and exploring the daily routines of students from times long past. Activities included mental arithmetic exercises and reading the McGuffey Eclectic Reader, a popular educational resource from the era.
Local resident Carol Meyers donated a bell from her days in a one-room school to ring at the start of today’s school year. The Museums of Historic Hopkinsville-Christian County hope these lessons will complement what students are learning in their modern classrooms.
“The museum here is intended to be an educational resource for our public school system,” Pritchett said. “We want to provide teachers with all kinds of lessons and resources.”
Pritchett and museum staff are currently working on several projects to bring the museum into local schools.
“I designed a program called ‘Community History Investigators,’ where I bring artifacts into the classroom and teach critical thinking,” Pritchett said. “We want to expand that and do more with our local schools.”
Single-class instruction is designed to bridge the gap between past and present and provide students with a unique perspective on the evolution of education.
The Museums of Historic Hopkinsville-Christian County hope to continue to serve the community as a partner in traditional education by helping students understand history and how it has shaped their modern lives.
All rights reserved.
